Chris Pratt finds himself with some extra time on his hands. Fresh off the news that James Gunn was fired from “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” with the early-2019 start date pushed back indefinitely, the A-lister now has a big hole in his schedule. And it appears he has found the perfect project to fill that void.
Variety is reporting that Pratt is now close to signing on to star in the newest film from acclaimed writer-director Taylor Sheridan. The film, which carries the working title “Fast,” is Sheridan’s follow-up to his critically-acclaimed directorial debut “Wind River.” Before that film, Sheridan wrote “Sicario” and the Oscar-nominated “Hell or High Water.”
The report says that the director’s latest film carries his largest budget to-date at between $70 and $80 million. And if a studio hands you that much money, you better believe they want a major star to lead the way. Enter Chris Pratt and his massive fan base of folks that love ‘Guardians’ and his other little franchise, “Jurassic World.”
“Fast,” or whatever it’ll end up being titled, follows a former special forces badass (Pratt) that is recruited by the DEA to lead a covert black ops team to take down drug dealers that are protected by the CIA. Even over a short amount of time, Sheridan is proving himself to be fascinated by the inner workings of government-led black ops teams and drug cartels, huh? The report says this film could lead to another franchise, a la “Sicario.”
No word on a release date yet, but with this free time, it looks like Chris Pratt is no longer out of work and should begin production on this sometime in 2019. Sheridan is, of course, hard at work right now on the second season of his Paramount Network TV series “Yellowstone,” which stars Kevin Costner.